For those sites that are running both SunOS and Solaris, it was decided to release V2.10.3BETA for SunOS as well as for Solaris, so that a compatible version of IRAF would be available for both platforms (see the iraf/v210/SOS4-v2103-beta directory on iraf.noao.edu). There are no plans currently to release V2.10.3BETA for any other platforms, but this could change depending on the timing of current porting activities and the V2.11 release. The next release of IRAF will be IRAF Version 2.11, and this version will be made available for all supported IRAF hosts beginning sometime in early 1995. We don't currently plan to support the DEC Alpha running OSF until V2.11, but this could change depending on when IRAF is ported to the Alpha (a preliminary port of an earlier version of V2.10 is available now from STScI).
The BETA annotation may be a bit confusing; the BETA does not mean that the software has not been well tested---it has! V2.10.3BETA is really just a snapshot of our V2.11 development system taken at the time of the Solaris port, including whatever happened to be in the system at the time (but not including everything planned for V2.11, obviously). Included are most of the science applications that will be in V2.11. IRAF Version 2.10.3BETA was well tested before its release, and the science application software has been in use for some time at NOAO.
A patch to V2.10.3BETA is planned for the very near future. Our goal has been to get this out in the fourth quarter of 1994 but we have been delayed waiting for Solaris 2.4 to be released to the public. Our initial Solaris/IRAF release was followed immediately by Sun shipping the V3 compilers to all our users, which broke our compiler support; we don't want the same thing to happen again, with Sun shipping Solaris 2.4 immediately after we upgrade our support! The patch will include a few minor bug fixes, plus support for Solaris 2.4 and the V3.x SunSoft compilers.
The X11 support package X11IRAF, including the X11 support utilities xgterm, xtimool, and xtapemon, is not part of the V2.10.3BETA distribution but can be obtained from the pub/v2103-beta directory in the IRAF archives; see the README file in this directory for further instructions. V2.10.3BETA users are encouraged to get the X11 support package. Its integration with V2.10.3BETA has been well tested, and users will find these tools straightforward to use, with xgterm and ximtool providing the needed replacements to the SunView tools, gterm and imtool. The X11IRAF utilities can also be used with older versions of IRAF, with minor limitations.
We do not plan to generate a complete revisions summary for the V2.10.3 release, but a short summary of the new science application software included in V2.10.3BETA is given at the end of this Newsletter, as well as in other individual articles throughout this issue.
Doug Tody
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